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Daily CEO Pay Now Exceeds the Average Worker's Annual Salary

In 1965, the average CEO made 20 times the average worker. Now the ratio is 273 to 1, meaning the average CEO makes in a day what their workers make in a year.

U.S. corporate CEO salaries rose 16 percent in 2012 according to a new report from research firm Equilar. Top salary: Larry Ellison of Oracle - over $96 million. Top exit bonus: James Mulva of ConocoPhillips - $156 million.

Average salary for the CEOs of the top 200 U.S. companies with revenue of over $1 billion was $5.3 million. The big money, however, is paid out in stock and options which added another $9 million to the median compensation package for the CEOs.

Take for example, James Mulva of ConocoPhillips. He was paid $140.8 million in 2011 but topped that in 2012 when he left the company after 10 years as CEO. Once he cashed out his stock options, took his retirement bonus and got his final paycheck, he collected a whopping $260 million in 2012.

The New York Times has a list of the rest of the top ten in departure bonanzas: Edward Breen was paid $46.2 million after leaving Tyco International, George Lindemann of Southern Union got $44.1 million, Kevin Sharer of Amgen was paid $40.4 million, Douglas Foshee of El Paso Corporation got $37.4 million, James Skinner of McDonald’s and Brian Duperreault of Marsh & McLennan were each paid $33 million, Michael Szymanczyk of Altria got $27.9 million, while John Chapman of Axis Capital Holdings made $26.5 million. Lynn Elsenhans of Sunoco was the only woman in the group with $23.6 million.

These “golden parachute” arrangements have had a negative impact on corporate performance, say experts. “If you have a safety net of this type of gargantuan size, it starts to undermine the CEO’s desire to build long-term value for shareholders,” Paul Hodgson, a director at corporate governance researcher at BHJ Partners, told Bloomberg. “You don’t really care if you’re fired or not.”

Not all corporate titans did quite as well in 2012. Another Equilar survey conducted for the Financial Times shows that the top 15 bankers made an average of just $11.5 million down 10 percent on the previous year. Highest paid was John Stumpf of Wells Fargo who got $19.3 million followed by Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan who was paid $18.7 million.